Photo: Paul Todisco

At PIXELATED GEEK, Kathryn Adams declares Peter S. Beagle’s SUMMERLONG as one of the best books of 2016.

Peter S. Beagle ended a three-year-long dry spell with this dreamlike love letter to the islands off the coast of Seattle. The novel has some beautifully flawed characters (a retired professor who brews his own beer, a basketball-shooting, bad-tempered Sicilian flight attendant are just the two most prominent characters), plus atmospheric settings and love and heartbreak and a story that’s part retold fairytale and part “I wonder what if…” inspired by a well-known myth.

ALAS, NOT ME loved the fantasy.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars 

In this fine, new novel, Beagle tells of a mysterious stranger, vulnerable, powerful, and far more than she seems, who enters the lives of a long established couple. With the touch of a master, Beagle handles the meeting of the mythological and the mundane far more deftly than others have done more famously. 

For more info on SUMMERLONG, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover art by Magdalena Korzeniewska

Design by Elizabeth Story